Martha Gellhorn
- Born: November 8, 1908 in St. Louis, Missouri
- Died: Febuary 16, 1998 in London
- Met EH in Sloppy Joe's Bar in Key West, FL in 1936
- Married EH on November 21, 1940
Martha Gellhorn always disliked being referred to as Ernest Hemingway's third wife. She once said: "Why should I be a footnote to someone else's life?" Outside of their brief marriage, there was a more tragic footnote that tied Martha Gellhorn and Ernest Hemingway together.
Martha Gellhorn committed suicide. This is confirmed in a Washington Post review of Caroline Moorehead's Selected Letters of Martha Gellhorn: "In 1998, sick with cancer and other maladies, Gellhorn calmly took a pill and ended her life, in control of her destiny until the very end." Ernest Hemingway controlled his destiny "until the very end" some thirty-seven years earlier.
Martha Gellhorn and Ernest Hemingway were similar not only in how they died, but also in how they lived. Gellhorn was the constant explorer travelling the world on writing assignments. She was the frontline war reporter with a burning desire to be in the thick of the action. She was the incredibly ambitious writer who was dedicated to the craft until the very end. Martha Gellhorn undoubtedly lived a life worthy of its own footnotes and as time passes more and more people are beginning to realize this.
